ABSTRACT
Framing theory/the framing approach is one of the most important theoretical guides in communication studies and other social sciences (sociology, psychology). Integrative framing analyses are needed because (a) multimodal messages (i.e., consisting of words and visuals) are prevalent, and, on many occasions, visuals are the dominant element of such messages; (b) experiments strongly suggested that visuals were awarded more attention and preferential processing than words; (c) when the message conveyed visually differs from that conveyed verbally, audiences remember the visual message better. Even in the unlikely event that audiences pay equal attention to words and visuals in a given message, there is no reason to focus solely on the verbal component of that message: When words and visuals do not convey the same information, which is frequently the case, audiences are much more likely to retain the information conveyed through visuals than through words.
